The poverty of public knowledge.

As a symbol bearing species one can ponder whether or not it is an inevitability that the human condition necessitates the prevalence of myths. Interest in the relation between the human condition and myths is not a new phenomena, but rather has been present in the work of anthropologists since the time of Sir Edward Tylor. Since then it has donned a variety of cloaks. These have ranged from it being the lowest form of intellectual activity, predominantly performed by 'savages' and peasants, to the notion that it is the means through which inconsistencies are universally worked out. It is not however my intention to discuss the ways in which the concept "myth" has been formulated over the years. Thus a sufficient, albeit extremely simplified, working definition for this post would position it as a false belief. The myths I am specifically referring to in this post are sociobiology and it's offshoot evolutionary psychology.

It is extremely unfortunate that both these fields seem to enjoy a, largely, unquestioned loyalty from the public at large. I have come to expect this of people who are unfamiliar with the social sciences, due to their very nature of presenting simplified and reductionistic explanations which can be readily consumed by the mainstream. Not to mention their painfully ethnocentric underpinnings which only aid in making them more identifiable, and comforting, to 'Western' audiences. Indeed due to their toolboxes lacking in necessary sociocultural theory it is not a surprise that they are unable to approach these myths from a more critical perspective. What has distressed me of late however has been when I have per chance overheard conversations between supposedly more informed people implying faith in such myths. I wonder then what the chance is in saving the public knowledge from poverty imposed upon it by sociobiology and evolutionary psychology when even people who are aware of the complexities inherent in society are still able willing consumers.

Malinowski's Functionalism is mutually exclusive to cultural change?

With a fitting tie in to last weeks blog entry, I turn now to Malinowski's approach to the study of society. More specifically to a fairly common critique of it which I happen to find rather unjust. Malinowski is praised, right so, with the important role he played in emphasizing cultural relativism of cultural traits and behaviours. He identified that far from being sporadically organized, like say a mismatching quilt blanket, they served the purpose of meeting particular needs. That is they performed required functions within the society. Some of these functions came from biological needs, whereas others came from cultural needs. This however is not a distinction I intend on exploring. Malinowski further articulated that they were organized within institutions, therefore it was of benefit to use this as one's scope. So as I briefly alluded to in my previous post this prompted the prospective anthropologist to be constantly checking that they were seeing how what they were observing could be understood relative to it's appropriate context. This now brings me to the critique.

It has been reasoned that such an approach falls victim to being too ahistorical. That is it treats society as a stable and cohesive unit with unchanging components. That if we are constantly checking to see what functions traits and behaviours perform, relating these back to institutions before analysing how the institutions interact with each other in addressing needs we are presented with an image of a society existing in a state of equilibrium. Putting aside the fact that this is clearly at odds Malinowski's acknowledgement that over time cultural needs will experience ongoing change this is an unfair mischaracterization. As, like Spencer and Durkheim, Malinowski used the analogy of comparing society to an animal I find it quite fitting that I shall demonstrate the fallacy in that approach by appealing to the biological sciences.

Let us presuppose we have someone who is particularly interested in a biological organism. Their interest lies in particular in understanding how the various organs and internal circuitry function in order to meet the needs of the sample. To this end they will look at individual organs and go into detail as to the functions they perform while relating it back to the rest of the body. Now one would not, I don't think, make the argument that such a person is guilty of neglecting neither biological evolution nor the changes which occur over the lifespan of the sample. Indeed to raise such questions would sound rather absurd. Yet when it comes to the study of society, it is seen fit to raise such questions of Malinowski. Simply because one is taking a functionalist approach does not exclude one from acknowledging societies and cultures live, largely, in a constant state of flux.

A Defence Of Cultural Relativism.

The chances are that you have heard something about the concept of 'cultural relativism'. The idea that beliefs and practices are best understood in their own cultural context. It seems simple enough, no? Unfortunately it has fallen victim to misrepresentation. Some would have you believe that 'cultural relativism' is guilty of endorsing the most atrocious of evils. A common enough example being the holocaust. The holocaust we are told was a cultural practice. Which, I would note, is a fair enough observation to make. Next we are told that as a cultural practice it should be understood it it's own context. Again, this is not an assertion I find terribly opposable. The problem comes however when the follow up statement is made that because of the first two points we are incapable of casting condemnation on it. Wait what? Somewhere along the way it would seem that the importance of understanding beliefs and behaviours in their cultural context got confused for a policy of anything goes. It should be remembered that cultural relativism came about in response to, and as a critique of, two prevailing schools of the nineteenth century. Therefore it is of merit to, very briefly, look at these schools starting with nineteenth century evolutionism.

Nineteenth century evolutionism sought 'the' evolutionary history of civilization. For it was assumed knowledge that through the shared human condition, or as some reasoned 'psychic unity, natural laws would act upon people around the world in the same manner. The result of this would be all societies progressing down the same evolutionary path, albeit at different rates. Thus societies perceived as being more 'primitive' were understood to be at earlier stages of the evolutionary process. What luck! Here we found ourselves with 'living fossils' through which we could track our past. Cultural traits and beliefs were collected en masse from wherever they could be found, mostly travellers and missionaries notes. Such vast collections of cultural traits were then arranged to chart the development of civilization. Sir James Frazer's, The Golden Bough is a famous example of this being applied to religion. Diffusionists however took objection to the treatment of societies as isolated, independent units.

Diffusionism argued that far from each culture independently plodding along down the same path due to some 'psychic unity' or unconvincingly reasoned natural laws, cultural traits were distributed via diffusion. This view rested on the assumption that throughout history various differing locations served the role of 'cultural centers'. That is, specific cultural 'progression' could be attributed to particular locations at a particular point in history. Two examples would be the invention of the wheel and the use of horses for transportation. What this meant was that important 'progress' would be attained at a cultural center then through the process of diffusion, the cultural trait would spread out to other cultures. This led to a similar approach insofar as the acquisition of data was concerned. Diffusionists would collect cultural traits from numerous cultures but this time they would compare them to find degrees of separation and in the context of geographical distribution. They could then chart this data to not only identify cultural areas, but also to speculate as to where the cultural centers were. So it was against this two schools that cultural relativism served as a critique.

A common charge which was levied against both schools spoke to the nature of the data they were dealing with. That is, by concerning themselves, to a large degree, with cultural traits they were mystifying the results. Cultural traits, it was argued, could not be scooped up into a pile quite removed from their respective cultural contexts. Rather, they needed to be understood from within their cultural context. This was demonstrated in the critique of the universal evolutionary path proposed by Nineteenth Century Evolutionists. The evidence for their unilineal model was never particularly sound and was more a reflection of the source material they were dealing with. Indeed their theories were the result of fitting such data into their speculative models. Far from following some universal path due to some 'psychic unity', cultures followed their own unique paths. Through their diverse environments, they came with differing solutions. These differing solutions then framed their future obstacles and points of reference when it came to solving them. As Diffusionists identified, one important source of historical influence was to be found in cultural contact. While the significance of such contact should not be denied, Diffusionists unfortunately overplayed their hand in two key areas. Firstly it should be noted that similarity does not equate to a shared origin. Franz Boas demonstrated this point in regards to masks. It is well within the bounds of reason that cultural traits, especially material ones, could coincidentally end up having features similar. Thus it is not enough to simply observe similarity then speculate from there. Rather as reconstructionists laboured to do, one must prove to a reliable level that such a contact did occur between the cultures, directly or indirectly, which provided a compelling window for diffusion to occur. The second point of weakness is that knowledge of a cultural traits diffusion does not equate to an understanding of the cultural trait. Cultures do not blindly take cultural traits without modifying them. Rather as Ruth Benedict identified in Patterns of Culture, in adopting cultural traits through contact they often get reinterpreted and understood.

Thus to understand a cultural trait we need to understand it relative to it's cultural context. Now let's finish by briefly looking back at the bogeyman often employed to dismantle cultural relativism, namely the Holocaust. Various areas that could be explored would include a history of the region. We could look at the historical positions and prestige/stigma attached to the groups who found themselves victim. Concepts such as 'race science' and the various theories held by the NAZI regime could be explored. This is mostly certainly just the tip of the iceberg. As I have however identified, striving to apply the concept of cultural relativism to our understandings does not equate to accepting everything!